BOOK I. STYLE IN GENERAL. It is as important in this art of rhetoric as in any other to distinguish between the order of performance and the order of training. When a writer, trained presumably to the point of mastery, sets about the actual construction of a work of literature, his first step, of course, is invention: that is, determining in what form of discourse he will work, and devising a framework of thought. The case is different with a student setting out to attain proficiency in the art. must begin with practice in details of word and phrase and figure; just as a musician begins with scales and finger exercises, and an artist with drawing from models. This is the natural order in every art: first, patient acquisition of skill in workmanship; then, matured design or performance.1 It is as a recognition of this fact that in the course of rhetorical He 1 "In all arts the natural advance is from detail to general effect. How seldom those who begin with a broad treatment, which apes maturity, acquire subsequently the minor graces that alone can finish the perfect work! ... He [Tennyson] devoted himself, with the eager spirit of youth, to mastering this exquisite art [of poetry], and wreaked his thoughts upon expression, for the expression's sake. And what else should one attempt, with small experiences, little concern for the real world, and less observation of it?"-STEDMAN, Victorian Poets, p. 156. "As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, or a pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I practiced to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself." — STEVENSON, Memories and Portraits, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 211. art here traced the part relating to style precedes the part relating to invention. If this distinction were made merely to justify the plan of a text-book, it would be of little consequence. It is made rather because the claim of style, with all its demands on the writer, is logically first and fundamental. Care for style is the mood that ought to control every stage of the work, projecting and finishing alike. In every literary undertaking, and with the sense of its importance increasing rather than diminishing, the faithful writer's most absorbing labor is devoted to studious management of details and particulars, weighing of words, sifting and shaping of subtle turns of phrase, until with unhasting pains everything is fitted to its place. And the result of such diligence is increasing fineness of taste for expression, and increasing keenness of sense for all that contributes, in however small degree, toward making the utterance of his thought perfect. Ideal as this sounds, it is merely the rigorous artist mood applied to literary endeavor; nor is it anything more than becomes actual in the experience of every well-endowed writer. The constant pressure of an ideal standard engenders a certain sternness and severity of mood which for the practical guidance of the student may be defined in these two aspects: First, an insatiable passion for accuracy, in statement and conception alike, which forbids him to be content with any word or phrase that comes short of his idea or is in the least aside from it. Secondly, an ardent desire for freedom and range of utterance, for such wealth of word and illustration as shall set forth adequately the fulness of a deeply felt subject. The practical questions that rise out of this mood are deeper than the search for qualities of style, though also they include this latter quest; they are, in a sense, not questions of style at all, but of truth and fact. If the student of composition would be a master of expression this earnestness of literary mood must become so ingrained as to be a working consciousness, a second nature.1 This is what is involved in giving style the first and fundamental claim. 1 "I hate false words, and seek with care, difficulty, and moroseness those that fit the thing."-LANDOR. *"Nor is there anything here that should astonish the considerate. Before he can tell what cadences he truly prefers, the student should have tried all that are possible; before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he should long have prac tised the literary scales; and it is only after years of such gymnastic that he can sit down at last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself knowing what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man's ability) able to do it."— STEVENSON, Memories and Portraits, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 214. CHAPTER I. NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. I. Definition of Style. Style is manner of choosing and arranging words so as to produce determinate and intended effects in language.1 It is evident that the thought must be developed enough to contain some question of manner and effect before we can associate style with it. Bare facts could be exhibited in substantives, or formulæ, or statistics; but this would not be style; it would display no degrees of effectiveness, nor would there be any interest in it beyond the thing that is said. A work characterized by style derives equal importance from the particular manner of saying a thing: there is a fitness, a force, a felicity in the use of language which adapts the thought to the occasion, and gives it dignity and distinction. By its style the thought is made to stand out as adapted to act upon men. NOTE. To illustrate how much style may have to do with the effective presentation of a subject, compare the two following descriptions of the same thing; the one from an encyclopædia, simply giving information, the other from a romance and told in the person of an ordinary man of the people. Avignon. The capital of the department of Vaucluse, France, situated on the east bank of the Rhone, in lat. 43° 57′ N., long. 4° 50′ E.: the Roman Avenio: called the Windy City' and the 'City of Bells.' It has 1 This is given as a working definition, suitable to a course of study, not as including all the literary refinements of style. The distinction, general though not absolute, between style, which centres in manner, and invention, which deals with matter, has been given above, pp. 8, 9. a large trade in madder and grain, and manufactures of silk, etc., and is the seat of an archbishopric and formerly of a university. It was a flourishing Roman town, and is celebrated as the residence of the popes 1309-77, to whom it belonged until its annexation by the French in 1791. At that time it was the scene of revolutionary outbreaks, and of reactionary atrocities in 1815. . . . The palace of the popes is an enormous castellated pile, built during the 14th century, with battlemented towers 150 feet high and walls rising to a height of 100 feet."1 The second account is laid at the time of the revolutionary outbreaks mentioned above. "At last I came within sight of the Pope's City. Saints in Heaven! What a beautiful town it was! Going right up two hundred feet above the bank of the river was a bare rock, steep and straight as though cut with a stonemason's chisel, on the very top of which was perched a castle with towers so big and high twenty, thirty, forty times higher than the towers of our church- that they seemed to go right up out of sight into the clouds! It was the Palace built by the Popes; and around and below it was a piling up of houses-big, little, long, wide, of every size and shape, and all of cut stone-covering a space as big, I might say, as half way from here to Carpentras. When I saw all this I was thunderstruck. And though I still was far away from the city a strange buzzing came from it and sounded in my ears- but whether it were shouts or songs or the roll of drums or the crash of falling houses or the firing of cannon, I could not tell. Then the words of the lame old man with the hoe came back to me, and all of a sudden I felt a heavy weight on my heart. What was I going to see, what was going to happen to me in the midst of those revolutionary city folks? What could I do among themI, so utterly, utterly alone?" 2 From these examples it would appear that we must enlarge our conception of what is involved in producing effects by means of language. If it meant merely setting forth bare facts of information, then writing like the first quoted paragraph would be enough; rhetorical study would be learning to make catalogues and annals, and all excellences of style would be reducible to various kinds of painstaking. But while good writing includes this, while one of its most 1 The Century Cyclopedia of Names, s.v. |